


Young and Proud (Ace of Base)

by ReadersInflammation



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Gay Pride, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Humor, Hurt Schneider (One Day at a Time), Pride Parades, Religious Fanaticism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24800545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReadersInflammation/pseuds/ReadersInflammation
Relationships: Elena Alvarez & Schneider, Elena Alvarez/Syd
Comments: 1
Kudos: 88





	Young and Proud (Ace of Base)

“Elena, when can we go?” Alex whined at his sister who was sitting on the couch next to her Syd-nificant other while they played an iMessage game of pool back and forth. 

“When Schneider gets here, I told you.”

“So text him.”

“Why don’t you text him?”

“Why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I text him?” Penelope interrupted before it could become a full-blown argument. Grabbing her phone she texted her best friend. 

‘Kids are getting antsy. You almost ready to go?’ she sent and almost instantly got a reply. 

‘Almost done. Be down in 5’ he had replied. She relayed the information to her children and moved into the kitchen to sit down next to her daughter. 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you guys?” she asked for the nth time this week. 

“It’s okay, mom,” Elena said as she sat up straight and placed her hand on her mom’s arm. “You know you’re invited to come, but we don’t need you to be there. Schneider is perfectly responsible for most things and where he falls short, I pick up the slack!”

After a roll of her eyes, Penelope replied, “Alright, but text me when you get there, when you plan to get home, and if anything goes wrong.”

“I know, mom.”

“And Alex—”

“Listen to Elena and Schneider, stay with the group, and text you if something goes wrong,” Alex parroted. 

“Like if you—”

“Like if I get lost or want to come home early, you will come pick me up. I know, mom. We’re gonna be okay, you know?” Alex told her in a gentle tone, causing his mom to sigh. 

“I know, I just get worried about you guys. You’re growing up and doing more grown up things,” Penelope said, sadness lining her voice. Elena looked at Alex, motioned her head towards their mother, and leaned over to hug her. Alex walked around the couch and also hugged Penelope from the opposite side Elena was. 

At that moment, Schneider burst into the apartment, saying, “Ready to show some pride?”

All four people in the living room looked up and took note of the eccentric man in the doorway. He was wearing a shirt that he obviously got custom made because it said, ‘I support my best friend’s lesbian daughter and her Syd-nificant other’ with a rainbow heart beneath the words. He also had rainbow suspenders on over the shirt, rainbow high top converse, blue shorts with tiny rainbow hearts on them, as well as a rainbow baseball cap proclaiming ‘Love Wins’. 

“Wow, Schneider,” Penelope said slowly. “You are very . . . colorful.”

Schneider beamed. “Thanks!” Turning to Elena and Syd, he asked, “You guys, gals, and nonbinary pals ready to go?”

Syd beamed back at Schneider. “I love that!”

Elena raised her hand obviously. “I taught him that!”

“Come on, let’s go!” Alex said and motioned towards the door. 

“Alright, jeez!” Elena yelled back and gave her mom one last hug. “Bye _mami_! We’ll see you later!”

“Bye sweetie! Have fun, be safe, text me!” Penelope had just finished her sentence when the door slammed shut behind the group. She sat back down on the couch, leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and sighed softly.

* * *

“What should we do first?” Schneider asked as he parked in a church parking lot that was being rented out for $25 per car for the whole day and was donating the money to homeless LGBT+ youths. Elena had insisted. It was ironically named after St. Victor, which only made Elena insist more that they park there. 

“Well, there’s tons to do around the area! There’s the first-ever ‘Pride on the Boulevard’ block party with entertainment, vendors, exhibitors, non-profit organizations, rides and attractions, beer gardens, and more along Santa Monica Boulevard from noon to 7pm.”

“Beer gardens?” Alex asked excitedly. 

“No!” Schneider cut him off from saying anything else. “No beer gardens. Nobody in this group is drinking.”

Elena rolled her eyes, gave Syd a knowing smirk, and suggested, “We’re already at Hancock Avenue so why don’t we just head down to Santa Monica Boulevard and make our way down towards Robertson Boulevard? That way we’ll see the whole party and then we can do something else.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” Syd told their girlfriend, who smiled dorkily and mumbled, “thanks” before taking her Syd-nificant other’s hand and starting the trek towards Hancock. 

“Okay!” Schneider said loudly so all of his wards could hear. “Everybody responded to the group chat I made of the four of us so that’s good. Did everybody share their location with me for the rest of the day?”

A chorus of “yes” was droned as they continued walking. 

“Good. Did everybody get my shared location?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Did everyone text your mother that we got here and where we parked?”

“Yes.”

“Awesome! I think we’re ready to party!” Schneider yelled excitedly and the group gave a chorus of cheers. 

The day went by pretty quickly, but the group was having the times of their lives. Walking along he half mile stretch from the corner of Hancock & Santa Monica to the corner of Robertson & Santa Monica took a majority of the afternoon. They took many photos of themselves, both at booths and on their phones, of them all in a group, Elena and Syd, Elena and Alex, Schneider with each of them, Schneider with Elena and Alex. They each got some souvenirs, including T-shirts, hats, necklaces, pins, and a lot of stickers. Schneider and Elena put rainbow heart stickers on their cheeks and took a selfie to send to Penelope. Schneider bought a pack of pride flag pins, giving the non-binary flag to Syd, the lesbian flag to Elena, the ally flag to Alex, and then pinning the rest of them to his own shirt. 

“Schneider,” Elena started to stop him from putting all of the pins of his shirt, worried that some people may mistake his identity, but when he looked at her with such an innocent face, worried that he was doing something wrong, she smiled gently and said, “nevermind”.

As the day was winding down, the sun no longer at its highest and hottest in the sky, the group went looking for dinner. After arguing against most of the places that they passed on their way back to the car, Schneider took to the internet and found a restaurant called La Boheme Brasserie & Bar. Syd was ecstatic because it reminded them of the song “La Vie Boheme” from RENT. Elena was happy that they were supporting a local business and got to enjoy authentic Mediterranean food. Alex was excited to have something that he would eat, considering the restaurant was American-Mediterranean. 

Schneider may have had to tip the maître d' in order to get a table, since it was a fairly formal, reservations-required type of restaurant, but he was just glad to sit down and stop walking for a while. The restaurant was almost a mile back down Santa Monica Boulevard, heading in the direction of the car and then passing it, but the group agreed it had been worth it once they sat down inside. 

As they exited the restaurant following dinner, Alex was excitedly telling the group about the Viper Room, which he had discovered was a few blocks away from the church where they parked when he was looking for a place to eat. 

“How do you know so much about the Viper Room?” Syd asked, to which Alex and Schneider both responded. 

“Buzzfeed Unsolved!”

“Oh my god,” Elena said as she rolled her eyes. 

“What’s Buzzfeed Unsolved?” Syd was more than a little confused. They knew what Buzzfeed was, but had never heard of the show before. 

“You haven't seen Buzzfeed Unsolved?” Schneider asked, eyes wide. 

“It’s this show where two guys talk about stuff that is unsolved,” Alex explained. “One season they do true crime cases and the next they do supernatural cases. Those ones are fun because Ryan believes in ghosts while Shane doesn’t and they go to haunted places to try to capture evidence.”

“That sounds fun,” Syd said, not really sure of the appeal. 

“We should watch an episode when we get back home,” Schneider suggested and Alex jumped at the thought. 

“Ooh yes! Which one should we show them? I’m thinking Goatman’s bridge,” Alex conferred with Schneider, who suggested watching the Mothman episode. 

“Nice, that’s a good episode,” Alex agreed. “We’ll have to watch them both.”

The group continued chatting along their walk back to St. Victor’s church when they saw people gathered at the church’s front steps with signs. Elena and Syd exchanged nervous looks and Elena held onto their hand tighter. 

“What’s going on at the church?” Schneider asked. “They don’t sound too happy.”

“I think it may be some protesters,” Syd told him meekly while Elena let out an indignant huff. 

“You know, 50 years after Stonewall, you wouldn’t think religious protesters still had the absolute gall to come out and harass the people trying to celebrate their identities and their relationships with their partners. The effrontery of these people is absolutely appalling, I swear!”

“Nice SAT word,” Alex mumbled under his breath, shoving his hands into his pockets and the group got nearer to the church. 

“Okay,” Schneider said calmly. “Let’s just keep our heads down and get to the car.” He made his way to the edge of the sidewalk closest to the protesters, trying to herd the teenagers to his other side. 

As they got closer and closer, the shouting and signs were discernable by the group, including things like “You’re all going to Hell” and “Get out of California, you faggots” could be heard even above the mirthful shouts of the rally just a few blocks away. 

Elena was getting noticeably irritated by the hateful group, something that Syd tried to remedy by squeezing their girlfriend’s hand tighter. They may not have said anything to the guys that followed them off the bus that one time, but Elena wasn’t scared like she was then; now she was livid. 

The last straw came when one particularly young protester, maybe around Elena and Syd’s age, yelled quite awful profanity at the couple as they were walking past.

“God will punish faggots like you in Hell!” he shouted.

Elena stopped angrily, Syd stopping beside her nervously, and she yelled back, “Well, I guess I should enjoy life before that happens!” 

Immediately, Elena spun around, kissing Syd full on the mouth in front of the protesters.

Syd was taken aback at first, but leaned into the surprise kiss, except it only lasted a second before they heard shouts and felt themself being pushed away from their girlfriend. 

“Hey!” Alex and Schneider yelled at the man who had pushed Elena and Syd apart, but Schneider held his hand out to Alex, silently telling him to stay where he was, as the adult of the group moved forward to place himself between the couple and the protester. 

“Do not touch them,” Schneider sneered at the man, who stepped up to the man in front of him. They were around the same height, but the protestor definitely weighed more than the landlord. 

The protester laughed in his face. “What’re you gonna do about it, fag-lover?” At the insult, the man pushed Schneider back a step with two palms to his chest. 

The next few seconds happened so fast that Schneider couldn’t tell what happened in what order. 

Two of the protesters grabbed him by his arms, pulling him backwards and throwing him to the ground. They proceeded to kick him anywhere they could—the back, stomach, once in the face. One protester lifted Schneider back up to his feet and punched him as hard as he could across the jaw, letting him collapse onto the ground.

Shouts that very obviously came from his three charges were heard over the blood rushing to his ears as he tried to cover his face with his arms. Not knowing what was happening to the three kids that he was put in charge of was the worst part about everything that he was experiencing right now. He couldn’t discern what they were saying, but Syd sounded scared, Alex sounded desperate, and Elena sounded furious. He hoped that they weren’t putting themselves in more danger. 

Then, in his haze of confusion, Schneider realized that he was hearing many more shouts than before and many people running towards them. These new shouts were indignant and some were threatening to call the police. The shouts of the teenagers were overwhelmed by the new ones and were eventually completely drowned out. Schneider still laid upon the pavement, taking in the pain of having just been beaten up, before he felt hands grabbing his arms.

“Schneider?! Oh my god. Please, please be okay!” he heard from right above him. Slowly, Schneider opened his eyes to see Elena kneeling over him with a worried expression. From what he could taste and see, Schneider had a split lip and one of his glasses lenses seemed to be cracked. 

“Are you okay, Elena?” Schneider asked first and foremost. Elena let out a breath that she had been holding and gave him a small smile.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she answered. “How about you?”

Schneider laughed breathily before croaking out, “Never better. But we should probably get off the pavement.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Elena and one of the people that had intervened in the fight helped Schneider to his feet. A few people offered to help the group, including calling an ambulance, but they said that they were just going to drive home now. 

Schneider looked off to the side to see Syd holding onto Alex’s arm with both of their hands tightly. Once they both saw that Schneider was relatively okay, Syd dropped their hold on Alex and the latter stepped over to him. 

“Are you okay, Schneider?” he asked slightly timidly. The man in question gave a weak “yeah” before holding his hand out for a fist bump, which the boy returned gently. 

Elena helped Schneider over to the car and put him in the passenger’s seat before getting into the driver’s seat herself. 

“You have your license?” he asked, eyes closed. Elena murmured a quiet “yes” as she adjusted the seat and mirrors. Looking back at her brother and Syd-nificant other, she saw the relief, terror, and pure exhaustion on their faces. 

As she set up a maps route home, Elena also texted her mom saying that they were driving home now. She didn’t want to worry her mom about Schneider because the woman would probably drive out to see them and then have to drive all the way back. It just didn’t make sense, so Elena told her nothing. 

Slowly, Elena backed out of the parking spot and pulled out onto the road. The drive back was in complete silence. Schneider had his eyes closed for most of the entire trip, making Elena nervous that they didn’t call an ambulance for him. 

When they finally arrived home, Elena shook Schneider’s arm gently as Alex opened his door. They helped the man out of the car and slowly ambled up the stairs to the Alvarez apartment. 

The kids opened the door and trailed inside, not seeing either of the women who were supposed to be home. 

“ _Aubelita_?” Alex called out. 

The curtain swept open and the woman in question answered, “Ah, _papito_! You are back. How was the parade?”

She was looking at Alex to answer, but when he glanced at Schneider who was being led to the couch by Syd, Lydia gasped. 

“Oh _dios mios_ , what happened?” she asked no one in particular. 

“Could you get _mami_ , _abuelita_?” Alex asked and Lydia nodded before walking down the hallway towards her daughter’s room. 

While they were waiting for Penelope to come out to the living room, Elena’s guilt was eating her inside out.

‘How could I have been so stupid and reckless?’ she thought as she looked at her landlord, who had leaned his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes once again.

Schneider suddenly groaned and moved his position slightly.

“Are you alright, Schneider?” Syd asked worriedly.

“Yeah, it’s just painful,” he answered, not opening his eyes. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Elena said, “I’m so sorry, Schneider. This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have taunted them. But then I don’t know what happened and they were kicking you and we couldn’t get them to stop. But then some other people came and got them off of you. And I’m just so so sorry, that you got hurt because of me.”

“Elena,” Schneider soothed as he opened his eyes and raised his head to catch her gaze. “It’s alright. I had no idea that they were going to do that either. It’s nobody’s fault. Well, except the people that attacked us. It’s kinda their fault that they attacked us.”

Elena let out a chuckle. “Yeah, I guess so. Still I’m sorry it happened.”

“Me too,” he said quietly. “Elena, I’m really sorry that happened to you at your first Pride. I should’ve just told you to go to the car before—”

“So how was it?” Penelope asked as she walked into the living room with Lydia behind her. When Schneider turned to look at her, Penelope gasped. 

“Schneider, oh my god! What happened?”

“We may have run into some protesters that didn’t like us very much,” he answered meekly. 

“You got into a fight while you were with the kids? Are you freaking serious right now?”

“Pen—“

“Mom, that’s not what happened!” Elena shouted as she stood up from her seat on the couch next to Schneider. “It was my fault.”

At her mom’s confused look, Elena took Syd’s hand and took a shaky breath, looking at her shoes. When she looked up again, there were tears in her eyes. 

“We were walking back to the car. We had parked in a church parking lot because they were donating the money they made from parking to homeless LGBT+ youth. When we got back after dinner, there were religious protesters outside. Schneider told us to keep walking and don’t listen to them, but I didn’t listen.”

“Elena—“ Schneider tried to interrupt but the girl swallowed a sob and kept going. 

“One of them yelled that Syd and I were going to Hell and they called us the f-word.”

“What, friends?” Lydia asked. 

“ _Mami_ ,” Penelope admonished the joke before realizing she really didn’t know which word Elena meant. 

“She’s talking about the…” Penelope trailed off before looking at Elena and Syd, both of whom looked very close to crying. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and finished her thought. “Fags, _mami_.”

“ _Ay Dios mío_ ,” Lydia gasped before crossing herself. 

Looking back to the couple, tears were running down Elena’s face and Syd was squeezing her hand tightly, holding it to their chest. 

“I was just so angry,” Elena continued. “I wasn’t scared of them like the time on the bus. I should’ve been though because I stopped walking and kissed Syd right in front of them.”

Had it been under any other circumstances where somebody hadn’t gotten hurt, Penelope might have congratulated Elena for being so brave. But these weren’t different circumstances. 

“Elena,” Penelope said slowly. “Provoking people like that is really reckless.”

“I know,” Elena sobbed. “I wasn’t thinking. Then one of the protesters pushed us apart. I thought they were going to hit us. I closed my eyes and just waited for it.”

“I did too,” Syd said quietly. 

“Then Schneider stepped in,” Alex said, noticing that the couple was falling apart very quickly. “He got between Elena and Syd and the protesters and told them not to touch them. The really big guy was super mad and pushed Schneider back into a couple of his friends. They started punching him and when he fell down, they started kicking him. It was terrifying.”

“A big group of pride-goers ran over when they saw what was happening,” Syd told everyone. “They chased them away by threatening to call the cops.”

“They offered to call the police or an ambulance, but we just really wanted to go home,” Elena said miserably. “So we got back to the car and I drove us home.”

After the story was finished, Penelope looked at each of the teenagers, nodded her head once, and moved to sit on the coffee table in front of Schneider. 

“Can I look you over?” she asked and he nodded his consent. 

Carefully, Penelope took off his glasses and handed them to Lydia. She placed her hands on his cheeks to move his head into a better position to look at the split lip and light bruising around his cheekbone. She gently pressed on the bruise to make sure that his zygomatic bone wasn’t broken. 

Then, she let go of his head and took each of his arms, which had many small scrapes and bruises around his elbows and on his palms. Lydia gave him his glasses back and he slipped them onto his face. 

“They kicked you?” Penelope asked. A nod. “On your torso?”

Realizing what Penelope was trying to ask, Schneider slipped the suspenders off of his shoulders, letting them hang, and maneuvered his shirt off, setting it down on the couch next to him. He heard a gasp and when he looked up, he saw Elena dangerously close to tears again. 

He looked down at his chest and saw dark bruising splayed across his torso and abdomen. He swallowed heavily, then looked over at Elena who had her eyes closed tightly. 

“Elena,” Schneider called out. When she opened her eyes to look at him, he held out his hand, curling his fingers in a gesture asking her to come sit down next to him. She made her way over to him and sat down with her thigh touching his. He took her hand and squeezed it tight. 

Holding back a sob, Elena moved her other hand to cover their clasped ones. Schneider looked back at Penelope and nodded. 

Understanding that Schneider needed someone to anchor him in case this hurt, Penelope waited a moment to see that both Schneider and Elena calmed down slightly in each other’s presence. Carefully, she began palpating around his ribs and shoulders. The nurse practitioner made her way around his chest to his back, making sure that he didn’t have a herniated disc or broken shoulder blades. When she finished, she asked him to lay flat on the couch. 

Elena moved so that Schneider could put his legs up and lay flat on the cushions. The girl left go of his hand long enough for him to move into a comfortable position before taking it again in both of hers as she stood by his head. 

Penelope gently palpated his abdomen, checking for signs of internal bleeding or any cause of pain for him. Finding nothing significant, she stood up and let Schneider sit up again. 

“I don’t think that they broke anything,” she told them. “But you’ll be pretty sore for a few days. Try not to do anything strenuous while you get better, okay?”

“Okay,” he parroted, moving to sit back up and put on his shirt again. Elena had taken her hands back and was picking at her cuticles nervously. 

“Hey,” Schneider called to her and continued when she looked up at him. “This isn’t your fault, okay?”

Instead of answering, Elena looked back down at her hands. Schneider looked at Penelope, who nodded in understanding and herded all of the people out of the living room for Schneider and Elena to talk privately. 

Schneider turned his body on the couch so that he was fully facing Elena who was sitting in the chair nearest to the front door. He calmly placed his hands over hers to get her to cease her nervous picking. She didn’t look up at him. 

“I know that you’re blaming yourself for what happened,” Schneider told her. “I’m gonna be 100% honest with you right now. Do you believe me?”

Silently, Elena nodded her head, still not looking at him. 

“Honestly, I didn’t handle the situation very well.”

At this, Elena’s head shot up, her eyes furrowed in confusion. “What? Schneider, no, this was—“

“Hey,” he interrupted her. “Please just listen for a sec, okay?” She nodded so he continued with a sigh. 

“When I saw the protesters at the church, my mind completely froze. I was so terrified of what could happen and not just that they might try to hurt us. I was scared of what they would say. To you, to Syd, to the two of you together, hell even to Alex. We had such a great day and I didn’t want it to end this way because it might be the only thing you remember from today.”

Schneider sighed again and paused. 

“Elena, you are the most empathetic person I’ve ever met. You care so much about people and that is an amazing quality and makes you so much of the person that you are. You feel the hurt that others feel. In a way, you’re like Deanna Troi from Star Trek.”

At this, Elena laughed softly. Schneider smiles wide. 

“Once we all became nervous at the sight of them, you felt it and stepped up to protect all of us. I commend you for it, but I wish that I had done it first or, at least, done it better. I’m the adult; you’re just a kid. The bigger person shouldn’t have to be the kid.”

Elena locked her gaze with his at the sentiment. It was shockingly similar to her beliefs towards her father leaving her alone at her _quinces_. She kept eye contact as he finished his speech. 

“I don’t want you, Alex, and Syd to just remember today as the day when I got hurt by some small-minded, religious fanatics. Or how crappy they made you feel. I want you to remember it as the day we all went to our first Pride parade and had fun.”

“We will,” she promised. “I’ll get all of our photos printed and we’ll all get copies. I want to remember the fun parts of today. I really do.”

Schneider smiled, but Elena wasn’t done. 

“But I also want to remember today as the day you put your safety on the line to protect us.”

Before Schneider could respond to that, Elena said, “Wait. My turn.” 

A nod and she continued. “Schneider, you do so much for our family every single day. You’re always here for us. You take care of _mami_ , you take Alex to baseball, you help Syd and me with practically everything. And you’re right: the bigger person shouldn’t have to be the kid. It should be the parent.”

Schneider eyes widened at that so Elena gave him a small smile before continuing. 

“You were there for me every single time _papi_ wasn’t: when I came out, at my _quinces_ , today. And I’m really glad that you were there today. Not just because you kept us safe, but I really enjoy spending special days like this with you.”

Once he was sure Elena was done, Schneider wrapped his arm around her shoulder, giving her a one-sided hug. However, Elena wrapped both of her arms around his torso and squeezed so he wrapped his other arm around her too. 

After a moment of quiet between them, Schneider decided to lighten the mood. 

“So does this mean I have to answer to ‘dad’ now?”

Elena laughed and released him from the hug. “No, probably not. But we do think of you as our dad.”

“Yeah, we do,” Alex said as he stepped into the living room from the hallway where he was apparently listening to their conversation. “You’re here as much as a dad would be anyways. And you coached me at baseball, which is a pretty dad thing to do.”

As he spoke, Alex came to sit next to Schneider on the couch. The older man put his arm around the boy in the same way he had done to Elena. Alex accepted the side hug and Elena sat on the arm of the couch on Schneider’s other side so she could get a side hug at the same time. 

“Aww!”

“Mom!” Elena and Alex yelled at their mom who was in the hallway holding her phone up and taking photos of the trio. The kids broke from the hugs and walked away, going to their rooms. 

“I love you guys!” Penelope called after them, laughing. She came to sit next to Schneider on the couch. 

“Thank you,” she said earnestly. “I was so worried about them going to this parade, but I knew that you were take care of them. So thank you for taking care of them.”

“Of course, Pen,” he told her as she got one of his special side hugs. “I’ll always take care of them.”


End file.
